


Shake me down

by purple_cube



Category: Dark Knight Rises (2012)
Genre: F/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-25
Updated: 2013-04-25
Packaged: 2017-12-09 12:13:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,966
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/774065
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/purple_cube/pseuds/purple_cube
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A missing scenes fic set during the last third of the film, from Selina’s POV.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Shake me down

 

She waits among the stragglers, those who are not quite sure if the recent turn of events is a good thing, and those who _know_ that it isn’t. She slowly picks her way through the dead and the maimed, but then pauses when she reaches the end of the corridor. The guard who had first brought her here, the one who had doubted her ability to survive at Blackgate, sits slumped against the wall. His eyes are open – but vacant. She crosses over to him, reaches down and lowers his eyelids with one hand.  
  
 _Sentimental fool,_ she thinks. But it’s something she learned to do a long time ago, the brutal underbelly of Gotham revealing too much and too soon to her young eyes. She never could stand to see them looking at her, whether their parting expression was filled with fear, or with relief.  
  
Once outside, she shivers, and silently prays that it’s down to the first tendril of winter, and not of something else.  
  
~  
  
She tries to talk to Jen, to force the disquiet out of her system.  
  
The glass of the photo frame is broken, but does nothing to diminish the contentment of the people immortalised inside. “These belonged to a family.”  
  
Jen lays an arm across her shoulder and grins. “And now they belong to everybody!”  
  
Jen doesn’t understand. Then again, Selina’s not sure that she does either. All she knows is that this far from her idea of the perfect storm.  
  
~  
  
She stumbles into him crouched over a gutter in broad daylight.  
  
“You should be more careful,” she warns. He jumps up and swirls around so fast that he stumbles. His wide eyes and open mouth bring a smile to her face for the first time in days. “If they see you, they’ll shoot first and ask questions later.”  
  
He finally finds his voice, if a little hoarse. “Ms. Kyle.”  
  
“ _Detective_ ,” she replies in an embellished whisper, surprising herself with the hostility it betrays.  
  
To his credit, his expression doesn’t show any fear – only anger. “The old rules don’t apply anymore. It’s just John Blake.”  
  
“Well, John Blake, like I said, you should be more careful with...whatever it is you’re doing,” she replies, gesturing at the gutter. “You never know who might pounce on you.”  
  
“I can take care of myself.” Judging by the hard stare that he gives her, she doesn’t doubt it. He steps away, calling out over his shoulder, “And besides, it won’t be this way for long.”  
  
“Maybe I like it this way,” she replies to his retreating figure. But even she isn’t convinced.  
  
He doesn’t look back.  
  
~  
  
It takes her a week to decipher his routine, catching him at dusk this time. He spots her after making his drop a block from the last place. He does one last semi-circular check around himself before making his way to her, mimicking her position as she leans back against the brick wall.  
  
“Ms. Kyle.”  
  
“Det – _Mr._ Blake.”  
  
“Is there a reason why you’re tailing me?” he asks, watching the empty street ahead of them.  
  
She shrugs. “Maybe I’m bored. Maybe I like you. Maybe I’m spying on you.”  
  
He turns to her then. “I believe the first one, I’m a little skeptical on the second. The third? Well, that’s just hysterical,” he adds without mirth.  
  
“How so?”  
  
“If you were working for Bane, you’d have handed me over already.” He pauses, glancing over his shoulder once more at the vacant street. “I figure it’s something else.”  
  
 _This should be good_. “And what would that be?”  
  
“Maybe you’re lonely.”  
  
She responds with a short puff of laughter. “I don’t give pity fucks.”  
  
His eyes flash with anger. “And I don’t need your pity.”  
  
“Have you looked around you, lately, _Detective_? Pity’s the only thing Gotham’s finest have going for them right now. And even that’ll fade soon enough.”  
  
He shakes his head, as if trying to force her words out of his mind. “What are doing here, anyway? I would’ve thought someone like you would be having too much fun living it up with other people’s money to be concerned with what’s happening on the streets.”  
  
“Someone like me?”  
  
He smiles, though it’s not as cruel as she expects. “Someone with an _appetite_.”  
  
“Well, maybe I’ve had my fill.”  
  
He shakes his head again, this time in disagreement. “No, that’s not it. You don’t agree with this, do you? Well, maybe you do with the outcome, but not with the way it happened.”  
  
“You don’t know a thing about me,” she spits out.  
  
He leans in, eyes dark. “And you don’t know a thing about me, either.”  
  
For the second time, she watches him retreat.  
  
~  
  
The following week, he’s waiting for her.  
  
“Third time’s a charm,” is his surprisingly warm welcome.  
  
She doesn’t know if it’s an apology or a play. Either way, it’s nice. It’s normal, or as close to normal as she’ll get in this new city of theirs.  
  
“What is this, Ms. Kyle?”  
  
She’s been wondering the same thing herself. “Familiarity,” she finally answers. “A tether to the old world, to stop ourselves from getting swept away in the chaos of the new one.”  
  
He nods, looking at his feet. “Yeah. I get that,” he says, almost to himself.  
  
When he looks up again, he seems younger than before, and she realises that he must be much closer to her age than she thought. She kisses him without thinking, and it’s clumsy and charmless and confused. It’s real.  
  
She pulls away just as quickly. “I should go,” he says, but probably not with as much conviction as he would like.  
  
“You should.” And yet, her fingers trail down his torso. “ _Except_...there’s an empty apartment on the top floor of this building,” she says, gesturing at the wall behind him. “It’s been raided, but they left most of it in a decent condition, and no one’s been back for a couple of weeks.”  
  
He seems confused, so she brushes the back of her hand across his groin. He jolts at her touch.  
  
“You said so yourself, I do have quite the appetite.”  
  
He seems torn, but eventually gives her a rueful smile. “Some other time.”  
  
She steps away, wiping her face of any expression. A flicker of recognition crosses his face, and she thinks that maybe he’s another person who knows what it’s like to don a mask, to hide yourself away in plain sight to stop people from hurting you. “Don’t flatter yourself.”  
  
The look of recognition is replaced by hurt, and a little regret.  
  
It’s his turn to watch her walk away.  
  
~  
  
She avoids him after that, and it’s a good few weeks before he comes after her. _Stupid cop’s going to get himself killed_ , she thinks when she spots him outside her apartment block. He gives her a small, nervous smile as she approaches.  
  
“What do you want, Mr. Blake?” she asks, careful to keep her voice neutral.  
  
“Company,” he replies, as if it’s the most obvious thing in the world. “ _Your_ company.”  
  
She doesn’t respond, instead brushing past him to get to the entrance of the building. He follows silently, and she ignores his presence until they get to the apartment. He catches her wrist at the door, his breath warm against the back of her neck.  
  
“Are you gonna invite me in?” he asks quietly in her ear.  
  
His hesitance surprises her. “Do I need to?”  
  
“Call me old-fashioned,” he says simply.  
  
She pauses for a moment, but in the end twists her wrist to clutch his hand and pull him through the door with her.  
  
They talk for longer than she expects. He tells her about his dad. She tells him about hers. They talk about Gotham, his version of the city very different from hers, but with enough overlap to piece together the parallels in their lives. He tells her that he’s sorry, and she knows that he’s talking about those _other_ charges on her file, the ones that aren’t linked to robberies and clumsy misdemeanors. The ones that happened when she was too young in the eyes of the law to be charged, but too old to prevent them from steering the course of her life. He doesn’t ask for the context behind them, and she doesn’t tell him.  
  
He seems surprised when she gets up and reaches for his hand, but follows willingly.  
  
~  
  
She leaves noiselessly, not wanting to stick around for the awkward compliments and naïve promises when he wakes. The air is cooler this morning, and she hugs her coat close to her body as she fastens the buttons.  
  
The quiet of the street is shattered when someone – a child – runs into her line of vision. She watches for a moment as he is chased down by two considerably older, bigger and stronger men. When it’s clear that the kid isn’t going to get away and that it isn’t going to be anywhere near an even fight, she makes her move. It’s been a while, but they don’t give her as much trouble as she expects – or would like.  
  
When they’re down, she grabs the offending item from the boy’s hand. “Never steal from anyone you can’t outrun, kid.” She takes a bite of the apple before tossing it back to him.  
  
And then another figure comes into her peripheral vision, one that is much more familiar to her.  
  
 _Bruce fucking Wayne_.  
  
~  
  
 _There is no autopilot_.  
  
She kisses him, and this time he kisses her back. It’s longer than it should be, given their situation, but not nearly long enough to say _sorry_ , _thank you_ , _goodbye_. And then he’s gone.  
  
She leaves the Commissioner rooted to the spot, climbs onto the bike and leaves wordlessly.  
  
She’s barely reached the shore when the bomb goes off.  
  
~  
  
It’s nightfall by the time she stops scouring the coastline for, well, anything that will tell her that he had been there, that he existed. That he’s gone.  
  
She pulls the bike into a gap between two dumpsters in the alley opposite her window. She’ll bring some fabric down later to cover it, for good measure.  
  
The lights are off when she slides the key into the door of the apartment and pushes forward, but illumination from the night sky is enough for her eyes to pick out the dancing shadow.  
  
He must see her body stiffen in preparation for an attack, because he limps out from the darkness, clutching his side.  
  
“I wasn’t lying when I said that I liked your place,” Bruce Wayne tells her breathlessly.  
  
~  
  
The stab wound turns out to look worse than it is, and heals with minimal fuss on her part. He laughs and tells her that it must be down to the radiation, but she knows that the implications of that worry him. He refuses to get medical help, however, and eventually she drops the suggestion.  
  
He sleeps in her bed, but doesn’t so much as brush her arm until the second week. When he’s well enough, he wraps himself around her, warm and strong against her back, and she sleeps deeper than she can remember since the day she watched Bane break him underground.  
  
The next night, he breathes her name, desperate and hopeful and undoubting all at the same time, and she doesn’t hesitate to reach for him.  
  
~  
  
Three days later, John Blake turns up at her door, wanting to check that she’s okay. His gaze drifts beyond her, eyes widening as her companion comes into full view.  
  
“Come in, John,” Bruce call out from behind her.  
  
They sit and talk for a long time. Well, Bruce talks and they listen. For the first time, he tells them - tells _her_ \- what he wants. He wants Bruce Wayne to be dead in the eyes of the world. He wants the pain, the guilt, the retribution to end. He wants to let go of the anger that has dictated his entire adult life.  
  
He wants to live.  
  
~  
  
Bruce asks her where she learned to fight. She laughs, because there could only ever be one answer, and only someone like Bruce Wayne would think that there is an alternative.  
  
“The streets.”  
  
He asks her to spar with John, at least until his own health improves. “Beating up a cop?” she quips. “No problem.”  
  
“Former cop,” John corrects through a mouthful of sandwich. “And I don’t need your help, either of you.”  
  
Bruce smirks. “How about we put that to the test?”  
  
The three of them troop to the roof of the apartment block that evening, and it takes her less than two minutes to have him flat on his back, his head gripped tightly between her knees. “This seems familiar,” she says with a suggestive wink.  
  
“Maybe I could with a little help,” he manages to squeeze out with what little room she has left him.  
  
“Just a little,” is her jibe as she rises in one swift movement.  
  
~  
  
They make preparations to leave. Bruce tells her that he has money and property all over the world under various pseudonyms, and has the grace to be apologetic when he does so. She tells him that she doesn’t really mind anymore, not now that she knows how much he’s given and how much has been taken from him. He replies that he’s glad that she feels that way – right before pulling the pearls out of his pocket and handing them to her with a grin.  
  
He doesn’t ask outright if she wants to come with him. But _she_ had asked _him_ – begged him – when she was certain that he was going to his death. And he asks her where she wants to go and what she wants to do when she’s anywhere but Gotham, and before she knows it, they have _plans_ together.  
  
“Come with us,” she pleads with John, even as he begins to shake his head.  
  
He tells them that Gotham is his home. She tells him that it’s her home too but even she can see that it drowns every single one of them eventually, glancing at Bruce as she speaks. John says that he can’t leave now, not when the city needs its people in order to heal. She argues that there are enough people around and that she doesn’t want to stand back and watch Gotham swallow yet another good man whole and spit him out in a thousand pieces.  
  
She looks to Bruce for help, and is only rewarded with a resigned look. “There’s still tonight,” he says.  
  
John watches him for a long time, eyes searching for any hint of ulterior motive.  
  
“There is,” he finally replies.  
  
~  
  
The first rays of morning sun highlight John’s clothed silhouette at the window. Selina slowly lifts Bruce’s arm from her waist and rises from the bed, indicating toward the door as she moves. John follows her, pausing close behind as she slips her dress on.  
  
In the kitchen, she switches on the coffee-maker that Bruce had insisted was necessary for his recovery, and turns to John.  
  
“You could stay,” he suggests with just enough hope to tug at her heart. “Things’ll be different now -” Her snort of derision interrupts him, and he has the decency to look away, embarrassed, before continuing. “Look, I’m just saying...everyone’s starting again at year zero. It’ll be a while before the rich get richer and poor get poorer. Maybe...maybe you’ll learn to love Gotham again.”  
  
She gives him a bitter smile. “I fell out of love with Gotham a hell of a long time ago. I don’t make the same mistake twice.”  
  
“You did with me.” He has that earnest look on his face again, and she can’t help but soften.  
  
“ _You_ were anything but a mistake.” She’s surprised to know that she means it.  
  
His eyes drift downward, resigned. “Where will you go?”  
  
She shrugs. “Wherever Bruce wants. I’m flexible.”  
  
He snorts. “Yeah, I noticed that last night.”  
  
She shoots him a half-hearted glare. “Watch it. You were hardly the choirboy yourself.”  
  
His grin tells her that he considers it a compliment, but before he can answer, the sound of bare feet padding across the floorboards gets their attention.  
  
Bruce greets them both as he comes into view. “Morning.”  
  
Neither of them answers, but he doesn’t seem perturbed. He makes his way to the coffee-maker, pouring the steaming liquid into a nearby cup.  
  
John decides to cut short the awkward silence. “Look, uh, I don’t really do goodbyes. So I’m just gonna go.” He’s halfway to the front door before she realises. “Have a nice life,” she tells him, a hopeful request more than anything else.  
  
“You should drop by when my will is read out,” Bruce calls out over his cup. “There might be a little something in there for you.”  
  
John chuckles, half-turning as he reaches the door. “You’re broke. What could you possibly have left to give to me?”  
  
Bruce shrugs. “Just a few things to help you on your way. You know, now that you’re no longer a police officer.” He glances back at her for a moment before speaking to him again. “If you need any help, I’ll let you know where to find us.”  
  
John looks around the room one last time, as if trying to commit it to memory. One corner of his mouth rises in a half-hearted attempt at a smile. “Well, I’ll see you around.” Without waiting for an answer, he catches the door handle, pulls it towards him and steps through without turning around. The sound of the closing door reverberates around the apartment.  
  
Bruce places his cup on the table and watches her, looking for any hint of regret, indecision, confusion. She has none.  
  
“Ready?” he asks.  
  
Selina nods. “I’m ready.”

 


End file.
